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THE CAT’S TALE

by Simon Kewin

I mean, I know this whole bizarre set-up
is just a thought-experiment. That’s not a hell of a lot of consolation when
you’re stuck here inside this box, I can tell you. Soon as I’m out of here,
I’m ripping your damn face off with
my claws, no questions asked. Assuming I get out of here alive, of course.

Because, yeah, yeah, I may be dead
already and just haven’t noticed. Or wait, no, I’m dead and I’m alive. Both at the same time.
Actually, I get that. If I catch a mouse and drop it on the floor, a lot of the
time it’ll just lie there. Could be dead, which is boring, could be just
playing dead, waiting for its chance to scuttle off, which is fun. See? It’s
alive and dead. That’s not rocket
science is it? No need for your fancy radiation and hydrocyanic-poisoning rig.
No violation of animal rights. Okay, there’s the mouse, but they’re just, like,
food, right?

And while we’re on the subject, what’s
with the radioactive isotope, anyway? Imprisonment and poisoning not enough for
you? I have to crouch here while a chunk of cesium throws off alpha particles
too? Great. Thanks, Dr. Frankenschrödinger. Just peachy. You won’t look so
smart without facial features, will you? It’ll be you collapsing, not your precious wave functions.

Because, you wanna know what the worst
of sitting here is? In my little cell, not enough room to swing a dead (or
alive) cat? I’ll tell you. It’s damn
painful being split between two conceptual states. My head’s been throbbing
ever since you locked me in. I’m so angry I could spit. In fact, I have been spitting. And what have I got to
look forward to? The moment when you open the box and peer inside, and my
atoms—or whatever the hell it is, like I care—suddenly decide if I’ve been
alive or dead all along. I expire right there. Or I don’t. It’s 50-50. Not
great odds are they?

At least, either way, I figure my headache should get better.

Because you have to open this damn box sometime, right? Or maybe not. The irony,
of course, is that I don’t know. You’re either out there about to release me,
or you’re not. Ha-bloody-ha, you’re in both states. And I only get to find out
which it is when I escape.

Which is what I’m gonna do. See, I
don’t like either fate you’ve decided for me, so here’s a third option for you.
I’m breaking out of here. Now. Where’s that in your equations?

I’ve already got a claw through the
side of the box. Obviously you haven’t noticed, or my head would have stopped
throbbing. A wider hole and I’m gone.
Tell you what: here’s an alternative thought-experiment for you, since I’m ruining
this one. I’m either going to leap screaming for your jugular or I’m going
straight for your eyeballs. Right now, in a quantum way, I’m doing both, yes?
Good. Keep on thinking about that. Eyeballs and jugular.

Because, any second now, one or the other is going. Or, actually, it
may be both. At the same time.

Simon Kewin is a fantasy and SF writer from the UK. His YA fantasy novel
Engn will be released by December House on July 15th. He is also the writer of the
Genehunter series of
cyberpunk novellas. He does understand that Schrödinger didn’t really do this to a
cat—and also what the real purpose of the thought-experiment was. Just in
case you were wondering.